Rotation? No these are not the droids you are looking for.

There is a big difference from a card game and a mini's game. There are more moving parts in the core set of Netrunner than there is in all of X-wing.

What is needed at this point is a massive update of ship pricing of the initial waves and a cull of the upgrade pool of the low utility items and the uber upgrades.

3 hours ago, Embir82 said:

By introducing rotation X-Wing will completely transform into Magic: The Gathering.
And this will be the moment I will abandon this system in a heartbeat.

Which is going strong 3 decades later. It might be worth emulating rather than letting this game crush itself under its own weight of gaffs and errata.

2 hours ago, Wibs said:

This sounds like an option to get more money out of me: "sorry, your fleet is obsolete now - please start buying from the beginning". I want to play in competitions with the ships I have, regardless if ships are OP or not.

So "no, thank you".

Hmm. What do new Waves and the Meta do??

2 hours ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

It needs to be done with exceptions. Never rotate movie ships (make an exception for Biggs, though), don't rotate fix upgrades that weren't over the top. Keep some basic upgrades of low power so slots don't become unfillable.

This notably can't fix the PWT-arcdodger imbalance, so it would be apropriate to go together with a nerf towards those, as Autothrusters are such a problematic upgrade they'd have to be removed.

I like the idea of rotation. Seriously, I think it actually needs to happen soon. . .retailers are not going to keep stocking hundreds of different XWM ExPacs.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

different game; doesn't help

x-wing could use a ban list perhaps, and definitely more willingness to errata major problems instead of releasing fixes in expacs

of course these things take time, so who knows if we're getting another wave of deadeye/x7/palp/manny/zuckuss nerfs and heavy scyk buff?

Yes it could. Coulda solved JM5K problem years ago and not wrecked the rest of the game trying to duct tape that together.

The main benefit of a rotation system is that it allows power creep. I think games need power creep to remain fun. But isn't there power creep now? Sure, but in the worst way. It power creeps the old power creep. it's better to skim off the old power creep, and only power creep from a rational baseline. As such, a wise rotation system isn't one that cuts off old expansions (although some old things like Biggs and Black Lotus need to be rotated), it cuts off the newest ones.

Imagine if the Scurrg didn't have to powercreep over a Jumpmaster, but would have been content to just power creep a Y-Wing. It'll just work better in a CCG where you'll be able to reprint cards more easily, and have a slightly adjusted baseline. The most balanced (and least combo-oriented) of some of the cool, new things can be preserved easily. The way X-Wing has been released doesn't really lend itself to that easily, nor does the fact that keeping iconic ships relevant is a key desire of many players. I'm just guessing, but I bet MTG players don't care if Hurloon Minotaur is relevant in the metagame.

It'd require an entirely different design philosophy from FFG. That might be good, but it seems unlikely.

///

That said, my FLGS had a really nifty tournament a month or two back where the only content (ships and upgrades) were the ones released in ships from the original trilogy (including Raider and Gozanti and ImpVets Bombers), plus a few fixes (Extra Munitions, GC, IA, Munitions Failsafe). There were a lot of things which just weren't available. A classic Fat Han with Predator paired with Lone Wolf Luke wouldn't work, since those EPT came in the Defender/Kihraxz/Ghost and YT-2400/YV-666 expansions. Can't run Panic Attack, since Tactician is only in Phantom and Auzituck. Heck, can't run Recon Specialist (HWK, Phantom, ARC)! I know a lot of Original Trilogy tournament formats allow all upgrades, and even new pilots like Rey, but it's kind of a more interesting challenge when you can't just throw Cruise Missiles on Vader.

I'm rooting for a Force Awakens/Last Jedi format tournament at the FLGS once Wave 13 is out. Only ships from the relevant expansions (plus maybe non-unique A-Wings?), and unique crew/droids who show up in the new movies (Chewie and R2-D2: In. Palpatine, Jyn Erso, and Sabine Wren: Out.). Non-unique upgrades would all be legal. Scum can run an all Quadjumper list.

I don't think xwing needs power creep as much as complexity creep, in the right quantities

Much as I love sc nym, two ship lists with SIXTEEN cards is silly

I'm talking more of errated x7 and adding bump/obstacle/stress restrictions to mods you'd normally just automatically get. Basically, more stuff dependent on flying well, and definitely more stuff dependent on being in arc

4 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I don't think xwing needs power creep as much as complexity creep, in the right quantities

Much as I love sc nym, two ship lists with SIXTEEN cards is silly

I'm talking more of errated x7 and adding bump/obstacle/stress restrictions to mods you'd normally just automatically get. Basically, more stuff dependent on flying well, and definitely more stuff dependent on being in arc

^ This. And more interesting generics, so that lists rely on ship chassis more that special rules shenanigans.

Rotations are a really bad idea. A rotation mean's you are admitting that your game is broken, but you don't want to take the effort to balance it.

3 hours ago, Timathius said:

That's not entirely true.

What makes Nym into the monster he is is Advanced sensors - Wave 3

Biggs - original core set

VI - wave 2

Taking just those cards out of the game changes the meta immensely. Personally, I want a living FAQ but that is apparently not possible with the license. So I would settle for rotation to be clear.

What about card re-print though? Vi is in Wave 2, but it also comes with the Lancer in Wave 9. There are many more similar examples, so there is no need to keep going. How are you going to balance that? If you say that the cards rotate out based on when they were originally printed, you have new ships that can be used with useless cards in their packs. If you say that cards rotate along with waves (so a card in an old and in a new wave will still be able to be used), then you basically have the same problem as now.

Rotation is a really bad idea for a game that is selling itself as "Tactical Miniatures Combat".

3 hours ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

A rotation doesn't address any of the problems with the game. The new stuff is what is causingvthe balance isssues, not the old stuff. Rotating also only really works for card games that have 100's of cards every year, whereas X-wing has a much lower number of new cards yearly.

All a rotation would do is cause a fewer iconic ships to hit the table and potentially conefuse someone who showed up to a tournament without knowing about it.

In short, a rotation is a thing that TCG's do to increase sales and change power levels. It would do nothing but make balance worse and irritate people for X-wing.

I also think there's the issue of cards/miniatures found in multiple products. TIE Fighters are part of the base set and Wave I, but they're also in the carrier epic. Do TIE Fighters all go away when they cycle out? Just the specific TIEs from Wave I and the core? Is there even an easy way to tell what set a card came from (most purely card games have an expansion indicator printed on them to help in such determinations)?

As far as upgrades and such, what do we do if the same upgrade appears in multiple products? Does it rotate out when the product it first appeared in rotates out? Does it stay until the last product it's in rotates out?

It seems to me as if any attempt at rotation will quickly devolve into simply a giant chart having to detail for every single individual component whether it's legal/illegal.

29 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

The main benefit of a rotation system is that it allows power creep.

I would think that the main benefit of rotation is to prevent power creep. By rotating a ship out, you can create a similar ship at the same power level with slightly new abilities to replace it. You can keep the changes smaller, without flooding the game with nearly identical ships

12 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

^ This. And more interesting generics, so that lists rely on ship chassis more that special rules shenanigans.

Agreed.

11 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Rotations are a really bad idea. A rotation mean's you are admitting that your game is broken, but you don't want to take the effort to balance it.

In what way??

Rotation simply means you are keeping the game fresh without flooding the market. I good ship might rotate out simply to give it a break. Then, down the road, it could rotate back in.

In fact, if ships rotated in and out, and each rotation got a new paint job, there would be some collectability in the "2017 Blue Squadron Repaint".

Rotation is one of the reasons I don't play MTG. I would abandon X-Wing Miniatures if they implemented it.

29 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Rotations are a really bad idea. A rotation mean's you are admitting that your game is broken, but you don't want to take the effort to balance it.

It really isn't. What you're thinking of is a restricted list

Rotations in card games are amazing for variety simply because there are WAY too many cards out. By limiting the card pool in certain formats, you can vary the base of the game by altering the strength s of certain card types

Course xwing is not a card game and rotations don't make any sense in it. In the right game type, however, rotations can breathe new life

15 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

I would think that the main benefit of rotation is to prevent power creep. By rotating a ship out, you can create a similar ship at the same power level with slightly new abilities to replace it. You can keep the changes smaller, without flooding the game with nearly identical ships

Agreed.

In what way??

Rotation simply means you are keeping the game fresh without flooding the market. I good ship might rotate out simply to give it a break. Then, down the road, it could rotate back in.

In fact, if ships rotated in and out, and each rotation got a new paint job, there would be some collectability in the "2017 Blue Squadron Repaint".

Ooh! I want a 12-piece T-65 set of all the paint jobs the Rogues had when they resigned from the New Republic to go after Isard!

(EDIT: spoiler alert, I guess?)

3 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

I would think that the main benefit of rotation is to prevent power creep. By rotating a ship out, you can create a similar ship at the same power level with slightly new abilities to replace it. You can keep the changes smaller, without flooding the game with nearly identical ships

I don't think rotations would prevent power creep, but control the rate of growth. If each wave is 5%-10% better than the previous one, that's probably fine, so long as things get reset back to 1 periodically. The key is to prevent each slightly-better wave from compounding to the point where the new waves are more than twice as good as the early waves.

I guess what I mean is there's two kinds of power creep. There's wave-by-wave power creep, and there's also total-game-level power creep. Rotations would allow the first, while preventing the second, which I think would be the best of both worlds.

29 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I don't think xwing needs power creep as much as complexity creep, in the right quantities

Much as I love sc nym, two ship lists with SIXTEEN cards is silly

I'm talking more of errated x7 and adding bump/obstacle/stress restrictions to mods you'd normally just automatically get. Basically, more stuff dependent on flying well, and definitely more stuff dependent on being in arc

This is fair. I want new things in X-Wing as time passes. Bullseye arcs may* be some of them. I think a Bullseye arc is strictly better than a non-Bullseye arc at the same number of attack dice. I'd call that powercreep in a sense, but it's harder* to use and somewhat skill-dependent. The Kimogila probably has a few more upgrades than it needs, but probably* represents the kind of stuff which is good to put into the game.

*Caveats that we don't really know and won't know for sure until it hits the table.

5 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

This is fair. I want new things in X-Wing as time passes. Bullseye arcs may* be some of them. I think a Bullseye arc is strictly better than a non-Bullseye arc at the same number of attack dice. I'd call that powercreep in a sense, but it's harder* to use and somewhat skill-dependent. The Kimogila probably has a few more upgrades than it needs, but probably* represents the kind of stuff which is good to put into the game.

*Caveats that we don't really know and won't know for sure until it hits the table.

it's not really power creep if you get the advantage (bullseye) at a cost (horrible dial)

it's power creep over the B-wing (unless linked batteries are crazy), but the B-wing isn't exactly on curve.

it's also arguably power creep over the g-1a, but you can at least argue the value of system slots and especially scum crew. The Kim is distinct in that it is built for burst damage (deadeye ordnance through a bullseye arc? christ that'll sting) with its only sustained damage option coming from r4 aggro (not nearly as flexible as FCS because it requires you to have a focus token, which the kim only gets via action, even if it gives re-rolls after spending a focus). With ordnance being as bluntly powerful as it is, though, I think you'll see more Kim than g-1a

One of the reasons I got into X-Wing (and dropped other games) was because of the distribution model: what I buy today I can play tomorrow, no rarity, and ships reprinted. While a rotation/retirement systems could potentially help with balance, I don't want constant reprints. We already see it to an extent with Aces packs. No reason to also go with a rotation.

I would prefer errata over rotation. With a distribution model of everything being continually available through reprint, rotation just doesn't make sense.

3 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

it's not really power creep if you get the advantage (bullseye) at a cost (horrible dial)

it's power creep over the B-wing (unless linked batteries are crazy), but the B-wing isn't exactly on curve.

Kimogila is probably a little better than the B-Wing, which is a little better than the X-Wing. I think what rotations would do is to bend the curve, so that the Kimogilas of the game can slightly improve on the B-Wings of the game, without the game getting out of hand.

To view it in reverse, if the Kimogila was worse than the B-Wing, and the X-Wing was still better than both, and this rough trend happened with all basic ship archetypes, that'd be bad for the game in the long run.

2 hours ago, theBitterFig said:

The main benefit of a rotation system is that it allows power creep. I think games need power creep to remain fun.

Rotation's purpose is not to allow power creep and a game's fun is not dependent on power creep.

The purpose of rotation is to keep the amount of content which needs playtesting to within the capabilities of the playtesters. If you have an evergreen set of cards which grows at hundreds per year eventually you get interactions which are so insane that the game is over before it starts as in MTG's legacy formats.

Power creep is the result of exploring the design space of the game and costing the new behaviours below their actual utility due to playtesters being less familiar with the new mechanics.

X-wing does not benefit from either and does not require either. It requires some heavy duty tuning of the current content. It needs cost adjustments to many hulls and it needs many upgrades removed for being either unusable or mandatory.

No. The End.

5 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

x-wing could use a ban list perhaps, and definitely more willingness to errata major problems instead of releasing fixes in expacs

I say ban list, and a dynamic one at that. That's the main crux of FFG's awkwardness in dealing with an increasingly competitive game. You can't errata stuff as a solution to power creep or design mistakes or wrong readings of the meta. Because then you can't errata back, you can't errata the errata, it'd be even more awkward, and generally a mess (which is generally what they're doing).

A carefully curated ban list would give tournament players a constantly fresh, reasonably balanced meta; all the others could keep playing everything as published, but with the knowledge that if certain cards are problematic in tournament play, then everyone should tread carefully when employing them in casual play.

So, say, Palp is an issue in the current meta? Give him the ban. Then one year later, reevaluate. Don't "fix" cards based on the way they perform against each other in a given moment in time. If they're really broken, they'll just remain in the ban list permanently. Maybe someday you'll release a new version of the banned character, if that feels important for flavor reasons.

If you examine any of the announcements Wizards of the Cost releases every other month for M:TG (not all of them contain actual bans, and of course they have multiple formats to maintain), you'll find sentences like these:

Quote

Recently, the [format name] metagame has been in an unhealthy place due to the prevalence and performance of...

Data from recent tournaments show that...

...[archetype name] has been dominating the metagame...

...strategies that are powerful, stifle diversity, and can be frustrating to play against...

In an effort to weaken such strategies and allow for more diversity in choice of win conditions...

...in a manner that promotes more interactive gameplay...

As we observe the [format name] metagame evolve, we also re-evaluate cards already restricted to see if they might be safe to unrestrict...

[card name] is still a card we'll continue discussing in the long term, and we'll be listening to community feedback on that point.

(Plus of course they never enforce any dramatically altering ban right before a key moment in the tournament season).

All this is normal talk. They never come off as saying, "Oh my God, we made a mistake, we're so dumb! Sorry, guys!". It's pure evolution of a game, it's an inescapable process. This is the tone and philosophy a serious game publisher should adopt. Of course, WotC has an Organized Play department and a Rules department that are kept entirely separate from the R&D department, whereas I think FFG has designers doing the erratas and the evaluations of the meta, which is not what designers should be doing, like, at all.

3 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

Rotations are a really bad idea. A rotation mean's you are admitting that your game is broken

Far from it. Rotation is deciding that different parts of your game work better in isolation. It's true of all games that keep adding elements over time. It's impossible to keep a complex system balanced over a decade or more of evolution where the designers may have changed, or at the very least learned more about the game they're designing, found new design space that the old elements couldn't exploit.

To be fair, the rotation in M:TG is more about protecting the new sets from the insanity that were the early ones, back when the designers didn't entirely understand the competitive power of certain cards, so it's sort of a reverse power creep, as it's the old stuff that's overpowered. But actually, this is putting it wrongly. There's no rotation on M:TG, there's ONE rotating format (Standard) which only uses the latest two years or so of material. And then all the other formats are so-called "Eternal": there's a format (Modern) that uses all the cards from the point where the game changed visual appearance onward; a format (Legacy) that uses all the cards except the most broken ones; and a format (Vintage) that uses all the cards, restricting a few of them to just one copy per deck (rather than four). Plus Commander, which is basically its own separate game, and a lot of other niche formats. Each format has its subset of devoted players.

So maybe X-Wing doesn't need rotation as much as it needs formats?

Bans are even worse than rotations.

Really, just Errata the darn cards. Put up PDF with the errata'd card text for reference and referral. It's really not that hard.

47 minutes ago, BadMotivator said:

Bans are even worse than rotations.

Really, just Errata the darn cards. Put up PDF with the errata'd card text for reference and referral. It's really not that hard.

Strongly disagree. Rotation does not care about a cards power. And lets the new power cards stay longer than they should.

A well maintained banned/restricted list is much better. And it is important to point out that the restricted list is most likely what would be used more often over the banned list. A well maintained restricted list allows them to kill individual combos, while allowing a card to still work as written, most of the time.

As a Decipher kid, I understand the appeal of endless errata. But, as I have gotten older, I have realized that errata should be limited if it isn't clarifying errata. I mean, dear god, the rumored errata that was coming was so **** confusing.

Pilot pack expansions:

these would include new pilot cards and base cards for pilots based on a theme. Maybe some titles. No models. No dials. Just the card and the base with some upgrades.

EpIV:

pilots: Luke, Wedge, Biggs, Red Veteran, Vader, Sienar Ace, Mauler, Black Ace, Vander, Gold Ace, Green Leader, Green Ace.

Titles: Red Squadron, Green Squadron, and Black Squadron.

Maybe toss in a Scum tramp freighter and generic YT1300 and a Han Solo Scum crew. Bait with ObiWan and Tarkin crew.

Something like this. Cost wouldn’t be bad, breath new life into X-Wings and Ties, make ordance YWing good. Chance to adjust point costs.

19 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Which is going strong 3 decades later. It might be worth emulating rather than letting this game crush itself under its own weight of gaffs and errata.

Real two reasons why rotation in MtG exists:

1) Rotation forces players to buy more cards and construct more decks which means more money for WotC.
2) Magic: The Gathering is all about constructing decks, there are almost no possibilities of tactical play in this game - all comes down to constructing decks, and it is only real fun. Thus rotation is needed for MtG because it gives players fresh cards and room for designing new decks; and constructing decks is only real decision making that you do in this game.

X-Wing is completely different animal than MtG - because there is much more room for tactical play. It does not need rotation of cards because strategy (i.e. constructing list) is only one of the elements to this game, the other one being tactical play (i.e. actual gameplay, obstacles placement, ship placement, picking right movements on dials).

So no, X-Wing doesn't need rotation. What it needs is balanced ships and balanced cards - and all of this can be achieved by sensible erratas.